


Do-Over

by ithilien22



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-04
Updated: 2011-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:11:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ithilien22/pseuds/ithilien22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine had always imagined that one day Kurt would break up with him. He just never imagined this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do-Over

For the first few hours, all Blaine does is pray. It's all he _can_ do. He knows Kurt doesn't believe in God, but Blaine does (or at least, he _wants_ to) and it's better than sitting around doing nothing. It's better than sitting around feeling utterly useless while his boyfriend fights for his life.

He hears the phrase "head trauma" tossed around a lot by the various nurses and doctors that flit in and out of Kurt's room after the surgery - often times with the qualifier "serious" tacked on, as if Blaine hadn't already gotten that message from the fact that his boyfriend is lying in a hospital bed in a coma.

At some point (maybe 36 hours in), he overhears a nurse say in hushed tones to another nurse, "even if he does wake up" - and her tone of voice suggests she finds this very unlikely - "he'll probably be a vegetable." She clucks her tongue sympathetically before adding, "poor dear," and beside him, Blaine feels Burt tense, fingers clenching against the arm of the uncomfortable hospital chair.

Blaine has the sudden urge to punch the stupid, oblivious nurse right in her sympathetic face, but he settles for ramming his fist into the wall instead. Burt flinches, but otherwise doesn't react to Blaine's outburst. Blaine's hand throbs from the blow, but at least it momentarily distracts him from the overwhelming pain in his heart.

After awhile, it begins to feel as though his entire universe has narrowed down to this tiny room: he and Burt, sitting side by side in the hard-backed plastic chairs that had been brought in to face Kurt's hospital bed. At sometime around 72 hours, Burt breaks the silence to gruffly ask, "shouldn't you be in school?" When Blaine doesn't answer him, he doesn't press, and the silence descends again.

They wait.

* * *

Blaine's the one who notices it first - Kurt's hand twitching against his side. When he sees it, he grabs for Burt's hand without thinking. He hears himself shout "he's waking up!" before he's even realized that he's spoken.

Burt's at his son's side in an instant, one hand in Kurt's, the other carding through Kurt's hair. He whispers soothing encouragement as Kurt's eyelashes start to flutter and Blaine tries desperately not to burst into relieved tears.

 _Doctor_ , his brain supplies suddenly, _I need to get the doctor._

With one final look into his boyfriend's newly opened eyes, Blaine sprints into the hallway and grabs the nearest person in a white coat, babbling incoherently as he gestures towards Kurt's room. He must manage to get the message across though, because the doctor's eyes widen and he rushes to Kurt's side, Blaine at his heels.

"Dad?" Kurt's saying groggily as they come in, and it's the most beautiful syllable Blaine's ever heard. "What's going on?"

"You were in an accident, Kurt," the doctor answers gently, checking Kurt's vitals as he speaks. "You're in the hospital."

"But everything's okay now, Kiddo," his dad adds quickly, holding Kurt back as he tries to sit up. "Just rest now, okay? You gave us all a really good scare for a minute there."

Kurt lies back without much protest. "You look awful," he tells Burt, reaching out to touch his father's face.

Burt laughs, but Blaine sees how he leans into his son's touch.

"Yeah, well, me and Blaine have been here for awhile now - you took a couple of days to wake up," he admits, voice slightly sheepish, as if he expects Kurt to scold him.

Kurt's eyebrows knit together at his father's words, but he doesn't look upset. He looks confused.

"Blaine?" Kurt repeats, almost as if testing out the sound. "Who's Blaine?"

For one heartbreaking moment, no one says anything. All Blaine hears is the sound of the machines that monitor Kurt's steadily beating heart, as his own heart breaks into a million pieces.

* * *

"It's not uncommon in severe head trauma patients to see some form of memory loss," the doctor informs them later, out in the hall, after Kurt has fallen back into (medically aided) sleep. "Frankly, the fact that he only seems to be missing about 6 to 8 months of time should be seen as a blessing, considering the initial extent of his injuries."

The doctor is right, of course. Kurt still has his dad. He still has all of his childhood and those few precious memories of his mother. He still has Finn and Mercedes and all of his friends from McKinley. Just not Dalton. Not his time with the Warblers. Not _Blaine_.

"Is it permanent?" Burt asks and Blaine instantly wishes he hadn't, because he can see the regret and pity in the doctor's eyes even before he speaks.

"It's hard to know for sure at this point," he says. He looks at Blaine and holds his gaze, eyes firm but kind. "But yes, it may very well be that he never remembers."

Blaine doesn't recall his feet carrying him anywhere, but somehow the next thing he's aware of is throwing up in a trashcan outside of the back entrance to the hospital. The second thing he's aware of is the presence of Burt's comforting hand against his back.

He shakes Burt off and steps back, leaning against the side of the building and wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve.

"Blaine, listen..." Burt starts to say, but he doesn't actually follow it with anything else. He looks as lost as Blaine feels.

"I should go," Blaine says finally, softly.

Burt calls out after him, but Blaine doesn't stop. He doesn't even look back.

* * *

"I don't understand why you don't just go see him," Wes says for what feels like the hundredth time. "I'm sure his friends have told him about you by now, even if he doesn't remember."

"No," Blaine replies, staring up at the blades of the ceiling fan as they spin in ever slowing circles. "I asked them not to."

Wes's head snaps up at that and he fixes Blaine with what would have been a withering glare, if Blaine has actually looked over to see it. "Why would you do that?"

"Because Kurt's had enough stolen from him already," Blaine says softly.

He knows that won't explain anything to Wes, but he honestly doesn't know what else to say. The fact of the matter is that Blaine is a stranger to Kurt now. At least this way, Kurt won't have to carry around the idea of him. He won't have to know that he had a first love that he no longer can even remember. Instead, maybe he can have all those firsts again with someone else, new and untainted.

Blaine tells himself this is the reason, because it sounds noble in his mind. If he tells himself that he's staying away to protect Kurt, then he can at least _pretend_ that he's not just looking out for his own selfish (broken) heart.

* * *

"I'm sorry," a voice interrupts his thoughts, clear but hesitant. "Have we met?"

Blaine looks up from his coffee cup straight into the steady gaze of Kurt Hummel, smiling down at him cautiously. He looks so vibrant, so _alive_ standing there in the middle of the Lima Bean, that Blaine's breath catches for a moment and he forgets he's been asked a question until Kurt's smile falters slightly, his head cocked to the side.

"I don't think so," Blaine says, surprised at how normal he manages to make his voice sound, especially considering how he can hear his own heart thudding in his ears. "I'm Blaine."

"Kurt," he offers in return, and for a moment it's just like it was that day on the grand staircase at Dalton, nearly a year and a half earlier.

"Sorry," Kurt says after a moment, looking away shyly. He's blushing. "You just look _really_ familiar."

"Maybe we knew each other in another life," Blaine hears himself respond quietly. He tries to smile, but he doesn't know if it reaches his eyes.

Kurt laughs softly and the bright sound tugs at a neglected corner of Blaine's heart.

"I don't really believe in that stuff," he says lightly, still half-laughing.

Before Blaine can respond, the barista calls out Kurt's order and just like that, Kurt's turning away and walking out of Blaine's life again.

Blaine longs to do _something_ \- to scream, to reach out and grab Kurt's arm, to shout, "It's me, Kurt! Don't you remember?" But instead he just sips his coffee and watches Kurt walk away.

He thinks about that first day when he sang Teenage Dream to show off for the gorgeous, out of place boy who had just mysteriously dropped into his life, and the way Kurt's eyes had lit up as he watched. He thinks about Kurt's soft sigh of surprise the first time Blaine had kissed him, and the way Kurt's fingers had curled around his tie.

He thinks about the night they lost their virginities to each other, how he had clung to Kurt almost pathetically afterwards, overwhelmed and so ridiculously in love. He thinks about that day in the parking lot, and how he didn't kiss Kurt goodbye because there had been other people around.

He thinks about Kurt's voice and his laugh and the way he would look at Blaine with fond annoyance whenever Blaine did something over the top. "Why do I put up with you?" he would say and Blaine would laugh and kiss him on the nose or ears or forehead until Kurt relented and laughed with him.

"Oh," Kurt says suddenly, turning back to Blaine and bringing him crashing back into the present. Blaine's heart leaps into his throat. He waits for recognition, but it doesn't come.

"It was nice to meet you," Kurt says instead.

Blaine never realized that his heart could get any more broken than it already was, but seeing Kurt's polite, indifferent smile, he feels it crack a little bit further.

"It was nice to meet you too," Blaine echoes, but Kurt is already gone.


End file.
